Lori Midson

Rhubarb puff pastry tart with foie gras mousse and micro salad from Dana Rodriguez, exec chef of Bistro Vendome.

Denver's top female chefs cooked up a storm last night at Temple Emanuel, the stamping grounds for WomenCook, an annual benefit for Work Options for Women, a local non-profit that provides hands-on cooking instruction to disadvantaged women who have hopes of working in the food industry.

Hundreds of foodniks turned out to support WOW, and while chef Jennifer Jasinski, who owns Rioja, Euclid Hall and Bistro Vendome, is always one of the female empresses who commands the longest lines, she was in New York City last night hobnobbing with celebrity chefs at the James Beard Foundation Awards, for which she was nominated as a finalist in the Best Chef Southwest category. She didn't win (some dude from Austin did), but her cohorts were there, including Dana Rodriguez, the chef of Bistro Vendome, who created a lovely puff pastry tart harboring foie gras mousse.

I could have eaten all of those, but everything the chefs created were delicious, and we've got the photos to prove it. Flip the page for the food porn.

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Lori Midson

This, declares Gary Lee Bomar, standing behind the bar of his new, eponymous Motor Club & Grub, has "always been my dream."

A dream, he continues, that's finally come to fruition after more than a year of blood, sweat and tears. "It's been a year-and-a-half process putting this together, and even four years ago, when I first looked at this building, I saw the potential, and while I still have a lot of stuff to do, it feels so good to finally be open."

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Lori Midson

Here today, gone tomorrow: These days, that's the siren song of more and more menus, many of which change monthly, some weekly, others daily, which means that if you get too attached to a dish, at some point -- sooner rather than later is the most likely scenario -- you'll be jilted by its abrupt farewell.

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Ashlee Coln had a dream: that ladies could own aprons both functional and sexy. Necessity being the mother of invention, Coln decided to start Cheeky Aprons, creating sultry kitchen wear that combines the front of an apron with the flirt of lace and garter belts on the back end.

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Lori Midson

For months, we've been keeping an eye on the construction at Alameda Square, which lays claim to some of the best Asian markets and restaurants in the city, including Super Star Asian, which is undergoing an expansion, and Pacific Ocean, which is also enlarging its space. But it's Pho Ta, a Vietnamese noodle house and pho parlor located at the far south end of the strip mall, that's been the focus of our weekly drive-by jaunts.

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Lori Midson

Yesterday morning, three Buddhist monks appeared at Adrift to bless the new tiki bar, a ritual for co-owner Jay Dedrick, who has asked Buddhist monks to ceremonially bless all of his Denver restaurants, including his four Swing Thai joints. And last night, during an animated -- very animated -- friends-and-family dinner at Adrift (which should open to the public on Wednesday), executive chef Wade Kirwan blessed children and adults with a sample of his cooking.

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Lori Midson

The woman sitting in the booth behind us was beside herself: "We kept telling city council that we needed a barbecue place out here. We've been to every single barbecue place in Denver and this is by far the best," she declared, waving her arms dismissively when I interjected something about liking Jabo's Bar-Be-Q. "No, no, no, this is way better," she insisted, revealing that this was her and her husband's third trip to Big Hoss Bar-B-Que...in a week.

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Lori Midson

"Goi Bo" Carpaccio with shaved cabbage, carrot vermicelli, toasted cashews, black lava salt and key limes from Parallel Seventeen/Street Kitchen Asian Bistro.

Colorado chefs cook their asses off -- not just in their respective restaurants but at culinary events all over the city, and last night was no exception, as thirty chefs from Denver, Boulder and Colorado Springs convened at the Colorado Convention Center to cook at Colorado Chefs Up Front, a benefit for Share Our Strength's Cooking Matters Colorado, a local nonprofit that empowers families at risk for hunger to eat well on a budget.

It's one of the best -- if not the best -- culinary gatherings in Denver, and the chefs, all of whom create a swell of dishes that are paired with wines (and, in some cases, sake), also design aprons for a silent auction -- and those aprons are definitely collector items. I've included several of those, along with plenty of food shots and chef-y mugshots from last night's soiree.

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Lori Midson

Last week, when Cinque Soldi Salumeria, the Italian deli, market and exclusive retailer of Il Mondo Vecchio's cured meats and fresh sausages, was putting the final touches on its South Pearl Street salumeria, a guy from Boston stopped dead in his tracks. "He came in off the street and said, 'Holy shit, this is just like the places we had in Boston. There's nothing like this in Denver, and just looking at this makes me feel like home,'" recalls Mark DeNittis, the founder of Il Mondo Vecchio and part owner of Cinque Soldi Salumeria, which opens at 11 a.m. today at 1284 South Pearl Street.

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Lori Midson

Dorina Miller, Yasmin Lozada-Hissom, the pastry chef at Duo and Olivea, and her husband, John Broening, executive chef of both restaurants, quietly re-opened Spuntino last week, the Italian cafe that Miller co-owned with Simone Parisi, who bowed out of Spuntino to concentrate on Parisi and Firenze a Tavola, his two co-cohabiting restaurants in Berkeley Park.

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